Encouraging Assessment of the Educational Climate in Medical Schools under the MEPI-MESAU Consortium

Abstract

The educational environment is one of the most important factors that determine the effectiveness of an undergraduate medical curriculum. There are many evaluations (both qualitative and quantitative) that have been conducted globally to measure the academic environment of health sciences programmes (undergraduate and postgraduate) by utilising different methodologies. These evaluations include assessment of medicine, nursing, physiotherapy, dental science, chiropractic and other related programmes [1]. The World Federation for Medical Education notes the learning environment to be one of the targets for the evaluation of medical education programs [2]. Student’s perception of the educational environment has been designated as the educational climate (EC) and consequently, it has been defined as “the soul and the spirit of the medical school environment and curriculum” [3,4]. Because of its role in influencing teacher behavior, behavioral development of students, and its implication in the achievement of corporate goals and the level of satisfaction obtained, the educational climate must be taken into serious consideration [5-9]. It can serve as a stimulus for change since it has been considered as an expression, manifestation and measure of a curriculum [10]. The Dundee Ready Educational Environment Measure (DREEM), developed by Roff et al. in 1997 has been widely used as principal tool in measuring the educational climate. The DREEM is a general, multidimensional, multicultural instrument. It gives a universal score of a maximum of 200 and is capable of measuring five separate elements of the education environment: Students’ Perceptions of Learning (SPoL), Students Perceptions of Teachers (SPoT), Students Perceptions of Atmosphere (SPoA), Students’ Academic Self-Perception (SASP), and Student’s Social SelfPerceptions (SSSP) [11]. The instrument can be used to highlight the weaknesses and strengths of any educational institution, compare the performance and success of medical schools, and make comparisons among students in different levels of study and of different sex [9,12].